2026.07.23 Registration Closed
Interdisciplinary Talk #11: Where Waste Goes — Love for the Earth and Fashion
Arts & Design
Intellectual Dialogue
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In this session, two experts from different fields come together in dialogue: a fashion designer whose work centers on garments made primarily from recycled materials, and an environmental restoration scholar who explores ways of returning waste to healthy ecosystems.
Joining us are Yusuke Takahashi, Representative and Creative Director of the innovative knitwear brand CFCL—an acronym for Clothing For Contemporary Life—and Shuichi Oyama, an African Studies scholar whose work explores desert greening through the productive use of urban waste.
What unites these two seemingly different practices is a profound sense of care. Behind their use of research, experience, and technology lies a deep commitment to sustaining the conditions that make life possible. Their work is not simply about upcycling, nor merely about working with termites and other natural processes. It points toward something beyond: a vision of sustainability that allows us to continue wearing clothes, cultivating the land, eating, and living well into the future. A far-reaching vision—and a deep love—for these everyday acts that sustain human life underpin both of their practices.
Event Overview
| Date | Thursday / July 23, 2026 / 7:00 pm-8:30 pm (Doors open 6:30 pm) |
| Venue | Kabayama Matsumoto Room / International House of Japan |
| Speaker | Yusuke TAKAHASHI (Fashion Designer) Shuichi OYAMA (African Studies scholar) |
| Moderator | Yuko HASEGAWA (Director of Art and Design International House of Japan) |
| Language | Japanese |
| Admission | 3000 yen (IHJ Members: 2000 yen / Students: 1000 yen) ＊Member pricing is available to IHJ members and their spouses or partners. Other accompanying guests will be charged the regular admission rate. |
Speakers Profile
Fashion Designer / Founder and Creative Director, CFCL Inc.
Yusuke TAKAHASHI
Born in Tokyo in 1985, Yusuke Takahashi graduated from Bunka Fashion Graduate University before joining Miyake Design Studio in 2010. In 2013, he became Designer of ISSEY MIYAKE MEN, leading the design team for six years.
After leaving the company in 2020, he founded CFCL Inc. In 2021, he received the New Designer Award and the Shiseido Sponsorship Award at the 39th Mainichi Fashion Grand Prix, as well as the FASHION PRIZE OF TOKYO 2022. Since 2022, he has presented his collections at Paris Fashion Week. In 2024, he was selected as one of the Vogue Business 100 Innovators: Sustainability Thought Leaders, and in 2025 was named to The BoF 500 Class.
©︎Yosuke-Suzuki
African Studies Scholar / Professor, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) / Professor, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University
Shuichi OYAMA
As a child, Shuichi Oyama was struck by the stark contrast between his first experience of a hotel buffet and the devastating images of famine in Ethiopia and the Sahel that he saw on television. This experience inspired his lifelong commitment to Africa.
After leaving the Faculty of Environmental Information at Keio University, he went on to pursue graduate studies at Kyoto University, where he specialized in African studies and later earned a Ph.D. in Human and Environmental Studies. He lived in rural Niger in West Africa, learned Hausa, and conducted extensive field research.
Often referred to as “the Japanese man who spreads waste in the desert,” Oyama currently holds a cross-appointment at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, where he leads a project on organic matter circulation. His research explores how food waste accumulated in cities can be returned to the soil to support ecological restoration and agriculture. In 2025, he received the 11th World OMOSIROI Award.
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